When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited his British counterpart, Theresa May, there was far more on the main agenda than common economic considerations with Brexit.
Following diplomatic formalities there were serious agenda items which included:
Firstly, implications arising from Japan now having been fully implemented into US-led military and security planning, to contain the rise of China;
Secondly, as the British Commonwealth remains an important military and security consideration in the Asia-Pacific region, the Japanese component has now become an additional factor;
Finally, given that the role of the '5 Eyes' is an important consideration with US-led military and security provision, it is only natural, therefore, for those in senior decision-making positions to now include Japan in their military planning.
In early January Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met PM Theresa May in London for high-level diplomatic talks. In true British fashion official media releases were deliberately misleading to avoid unnecessary publicity about the real agenda items of meetings. Centuries of unbridled class and state power together with elite patronage systems have given the British ruling class the power to conduct their business in the manner they see fit.
Eventually, 10 Downing Street issued a press statement to the effect that the diplomatic meetings were 'to strengthen relations with Japan across the fields of business, security and research'. (1)
While Japanese business-people have been concerned about the effect of economic and political instability with the forthcoming Brexit fiasco affecting investment and trade, such considerations would appear, however, of secondary important for their PM, Shinzo Abe. He did, nevertheless, acknowledge that 'it is the strong will of Japan to further develop this strong partnership with the UK, to invest more in your country and to enjoy further economic growth'. (2)
A later media release provided a further, more accurate clarification of the high-level diplomacy, and stated 'Mr Abe was in Britain to further 5 Eyes co-operation and for his Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy', revealing priority given to military and security considerations 'to counter China's presence in the South China Sea' and elsewhere. (3)
In recent times US-led regional defence and security planning has been fully-implemented; Japan has become a northern hub for 'US interests' with Australia as a southern counterpart. The triangular diplomatic relationship, over a decade in planning and implementation, has become fully operational. The present Cold War against China is the logical outcome of such military planning. US-led military exercises, which include real war scenarios, have created serious fear of China and the US entering 'an actual war'. (4)
An increasingly likely scenario, however, is for US military planners to expect Australia and Japan to take front-line positions with any hostilities. The US-led triangular relationship, for example, has included Australia with 'a visiting forces agreement clinched with Japan to facilitate joint military exercises'. (5)
It has not been difficult to establish just who will be pulling the strings behind the Australian and Japanese puppets. During the final stages of the triangular military planning an official US Defence Department media release announced a transformation of their Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). (6) The five-year military plan included the development of a 'spy service focussed on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units', and the full implementation of the triangular plan. (7) The hundreds of further DIA officers sent overseas were also not concerned with usual intelligence-gathering but military assessments of the balance of forces affecting US hegemonic positions. To conduct such assessments an intelligence agency has to establish possible threats 'from within'.
It has also not been difficult to identify the logical outcome of the transformation of the DIA upon Australian society and elsewhere.
Australians, in recent times, have also become used to wholesale domestic espionage being conducted through the state into the domestic arena. It has created an atmosphere of intrigue; wave after wave of official statements from Canberra about Islamic jihadists and sexual perverts have done little to dispel a general concern about individual rights and civil liberties. In fact, many believe so-called Homeland Security provision is little other than domestic espionage of an entire population using an umbrella organisation for ulterior motives and Cold War planning, directly primarily at progressive-minded people, trade-unions and community organisations in the spurious name of 'national security'.
Some people, including Queensland Police Minister, Mark Ryan, have openly stated that Peter Dutton, the minister responsible for such provision in the present Coalition government, 'likes to talk the talk but there is increasingly disturbing signs that when it comes to important issues of national security he doesn't walk the walk'. (8)
The rise of China in the Asia-Pacific region has been assessed by the Pentagon as a threat to traditional US hegemonic positions. Numerous reports, from right-wing think-tanks including the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, for example, have stressed that 'Australia's strategic outlook is deteriorating', and that 'there's a real risk that South-east Asia is becoming a Chinese sphere of influence'. (9) It is significant to note such organisations invariably follow US-led diplomatic positions as a matter of course.
As the British Commonwealth has eleven member countries in the Pacific region, the US-led triangular defence and security provision has been keen to use Westminster to facilitate and develop strategic alliances. A number of the countries possess significance in regional military planning for proximity to sensitive shipping-lanes and as convenient vantage points to conduct surveillance across the region.
They also provide strategic outposts for further diplomacy elsewhere in the wider region; Papua New Guinea, for example, has an important position within inner Commonwealth and Melanesian circles, and also forms a strategic part of the Defence of Australia doctrine.
It is, therefore, also no surprise to note Prince Charles, as acting head of the British Commonwealth visiting Vanuatu in an official capacity last April, to challenge China's influence in the country. (10) Vanuatu is also a Melanesian country, with strong linkage to PNG. The timing was particularly revealing: two days later an official Defence Department media release stated 'China has approached Vanuatu about building a permanent military presence in the South Pacific', and the matter had been 'discussed at the highest level in Canberra and Washington'. (11)
It is, however, the increased importance of Japan to 5 Eyes defence and security planning which explains why Shinzo Abe visited London. The 5 Eyes provision officially links the US with Britain and three important Commonwealth member countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand. It has been officially noted that 'the 5 Eyes is Australia's critical intelligence sharing operation'. (12) It is also significant to note the linkage of the 5 Eyes provision with the new triangular US-led provision with Japan and Australia. Official media releases, for example, noted Abe and May, 'after meeting at Downing Street to deepen Japanese intelligence sharing with 5 Eyes countries including Australia', left little to the imagination about the overlap of military and security provision with the British Commonwealth. Prime Ministers Abe and May then concluded their high-level diplomatic meetings which appear to have followed the main US-led agenda. (13)
Postscipt: New Zealanders will protest on that Australian day of infamy, January 26, outside the US spy base at Waihopai.
According to Murray Horton, Organiser of the NZ Ant-Bases Campaign, the NZ Labor Government of Jacinda Adern “has continued NZ’s membership of the Five Eyes spy alliance, which is the reason for Waihopai’s existence. Within the past few months, we have witnessed the Government falling in behind the US and Five Eyes, as the US aggressively confronts China and Chinese companies to reassert its military, political and economic dominance of the world. This despite Jacinda having said: "New Zealand has, and always has had, an independent foreign policy". The evidence shows 100% the opposite and nowhere more glaringly than at Waihopai. The fact is that NZ is the most loyal, albeit junior, satellite of the US Empire.”
“Waihopai does not operate in the national interest of New Zealand. In all but name it is a foreign spy base on NZ soil, paid for with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars; it spies on Kiwis and foreigners; it is NZ’s key contribution to America’s global spying & war machine. Waihopai must be closed,” said Horton.
1. May hopes Japanese PM., The Guardian (U.K.), 9 January 2019.
2. May deal 'threatens national security', The Weekend Australian, 12-13 January 2019.
3. Ibid.
4. China forum warns no silver lining in trade stand-off, Australian, 8 January 2019.
5. Japan, Australia mull agreement on closer military ties, Australian, 27 December 2017.
6. Pentagon plays the spy game, The Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 7 December 2012.
7. Ibid.
8. Crime busters 'to quit rather than move', The Weekend Australian, 12-13 January 2019.
9. China's rise a threat to security, Australian, 15 November 2017.
10. Prince Charles greeted by colourful dancers upon arrival in Vanuatu, 9 News, 7 April 2018.
10. Prince Charles greeted by colourful dancers upon arrival in Vanuatu, 9 News, 7 April 2018.
11. China eyes Vanuatu military base, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April 2018.
12. Weekend Australian, op.cit., 12-13 January 2019.
13. Ibid.
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